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Don’t miss this last opportunity to buy your SMOKE’S CAMARO Raffle Tickets. The last day to buy tickets is MONDAY AUGUST 30th. The Drawing is Tuesday August 31st. Buy now before it’s too late and you could walk away with a brand new CAMARO or other prizes. Good Luck.

As of today, you have just under one month left to purchase tickets for that sweet 2010 Chevy Camaro that the Tony Stewart Foundation is raffling off. The drawing takes place on AUGUST 30th people! I have babbled on and on about this car because it is seriously sweet– even better than just your average 2010 Camaro because it has been enhanced by Unique Autosports:

Strut wheels wear 22 inch Pirelli tires

Strut grille

K&N state of the art filter and intake system will boost power to 4oo bhp

Borla Exhaust so your neighbors can hear when you are taking her out for a spin (ok the release says gives the car a “throaty roar”).

Tony and Riki Rachtman at the Chevy Tent at the Brickyard...(Photo Credit: The Tony Stewart Foundation)

Ok are you drooling yet? You should be! But if you aren’t drooling and grabbing for your wallet yet maybe this will entice you. The winner of the Camaro also gets:

all-expense paid trip to Stewart-Haas Racing in Kannapolis, NC

personal VIP Meet & Greet with Tony Stewart, who will hand over the keys to your new car

delivery of Camaro to your home.

Personally- I think that the trip to Kannapolis alone (regardless of the car) is worth the price of the raffle ticket add to that a SHWEET car and a personal VIP Meet & Greet with Tony Stewart.

Still have reservations? Well then let’s talk about the good YOU will be helping the TONY STEWART FOUNDATION do. The Tony Stewart Foundation grant program serves children, animals and injured drivers. Remember that since it’s inception in 2004, the Tony Stewart foundation has awarded $4.5 million dollars to charitable organizations including: Victory Junction Gang Camp, Indiana Canine Assistance Network, Camp Riley/Riley’s hospital for children, various camps serving special needs children, various animal rescue groups (including The Friends Of Ferdinand), the Sam Schmidt Paralysis Foundation, USCA Benevolent fund and well the list can go on and on.

Well then where do I sign up you ask? You can purchase your raffle ticket at SmokesCamaro.com for $50 for one, $75 for two or $100 for three. What’s better? They are only going to sell at MOST 10,000 tickets BUT as of this writing less than half the tickets have been sold (there are currently 6413 tickets available for purchase). And remember there are 14 other runner up prizes if you do NOT get chosen as the winner of the camaro that are valued anywhere from $50.00 to $225.00 and include a variety of Tony Stewart autographed memorabilia.

This Sunday you might want to set your DVR’s for SPIKE TV (DirecTV channel 241) and you can see Tony Stewart and my his camaro on Unique Motorsports Miami. It will be featured both this Sunday (April 18th) and next Sunday (April 25th). I think it’s scheduled to run at 10:30 (EDT- for us on the west it’s on at 7:30am) but check your local listings. It will probably be on the same time as the race on Sunday because that is just my luck.

This is THE very camaro that you can buy a raffle ticket to win with proceeds going to benefit the Tony Stewart Foundation (for a raffle ticket visit: SmokesCamaro.com). There is even a new pricing schematic for the tickets: ($50 for one, $75 for two, $100 for three). You might not want to though since I am going to win it. You will feel foolish having bought a ticket and then seeing me drive all over in my fancy gorgeous white camaro. I know I have told you how much I LOVE the new Camaro from Chevy…and what better way than to get a customized one from none other than Tony Stewart himself. (Not to mention that the Shop Tour you get as part of the prize would be like the most amazing part of the whole deal). I even bought a raffle ticket this time. Ok so I probably won’t win it…but I won’t cry if I win one of the early bird prizes…like maybe the tickets to the Brickyard. Yeah. But I still would rather have the camaro (even though I probably couldn’t afford the freaking gift tax on the thing).

As you know I not only follow Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman, the drivers but I follow each of their driver foundations as well. I wanted to let you all know that this past Saturday The Ryan Newman Foundation released their book Pit Road Pets: NASCAR Stars & Their Pets, The Second Lap. I absolutely love my copy of the first Pit Road Pets book. It’s definite one of the favorites on my NASCAR bookself. If this second book is anything like the first one (I have ordered mine but don’t have it yet) it’s a gorgeous book of NASCAR Stars and the menagerie pets owned by drivers, crew chiefs, tv personalities and this year there was the addition of fans and their pets in the book too. Proceeds from the first book went to help establish a regional spay and neuter clinic in North Carolina. For this second book, according to the Ryan Newman Foundation website, “One hundred percent of the Ryan Newman Foundation net proceeds will be donated to animal causes such as giving grants to families that can’t afford to spay or neuter their pets. The Ryan Newman Foundation also plans to build an animal education center in North Carolina that will serve as a model for animal welfare and education throughout the U.S.” As a pet owner I can’t help but support this cause. Roxy was spayed as soon as she was old enough. The book is available on line from The Ryan Newman Website . Roxy says to get your copy today:

I have mentioned it before but I thought I should mention it again: Tony Stewart is raffling off a gorgeous white 2010 Chevy Camaro as well as an expenses paid trip to visit the SHR shop to pick up my your car. Raffle tickets are $50.00 each. There are a ton of early bird prizes being raffled off as well so the sooner you buy your raffle ticket the better your chances of winning something. All proceeds from the raffle go the Tony Stewart Foundation to help chronically ill children as well as endangered and injured animals. I bought my ticket (honestly it’s taped to the wall of my office)…have you bought yours? You can get more information about the raffle at SmokesCamaro.com

You should really check out the Tony Stewart Foundation website because they have a couple of other cool initiatives that you might be interested in besides the Camaro raffle you might be interested. The first is their Checkered Flag auction series. The Foundation posts a series of special ebay auctions the first friday of every month- items are autographed and unique. I have actually taken part in one of these auctions and can tell you that they go very smoothly and the item was in perfect shape. There is also the Lap Leaders program where for a minimum monthly donation of $14.00 a month you get a quarterly gift- some that are exclusive to the lap leader program. Also keep checking the foundation website as they continue to share information on their initiatves and ways you can help.

I will tell you that when we interviewed Tony – the best part of the whole interview was when we were talking about his Foundation and the work they do- especially with the animals- his whole face lit up as he talked about the horses and the dogs and how he loves animals. It’s something that you can tell is very close to his heart.

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And lastly I wanted to talk about the NASCAR FOUNDATION’s NASCAR DAY program. It includes the purchase of a pin for $5.00 and wearing it on May 21st. I also participate in this every year. As a matter of face the first thing that Misty and I bought when we were at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the race were our NASCAR DAY pins. We wear them every year. The money goes to help the NASCAR foundation. This year they are focusing their “Big 5″ community projects which are: “renovation and race theme decoration of a portion of the Aflac Cancer Center and Blood Disorders Service of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta in Atlanta, Ga.; partnering with Bank of America for a racing-themed educational initiative at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla.; working with Sprint, Inc. for a playground build at the Kansas City Ronald McDonald House in Kansas City, Mo.; A Place for Hope project outside Charlotte, N.C., and a youth initiative at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif.” Visit The NASCAR Foundation for more information.

I have ALWAYS loved cars. As far back as I can remember anyway. My mom tells the story that she didn’t realize how observant I was when I was little until my parents and I were walking through a parking lot when I was about three and a half or so. I looked at a pickup truck- pointed at it and proclaimed “That truck has wheels like SweetiePie’s truck.” (Sweetie Pie was my pet name for my paternal grandfather). My dad looked at the truck and told my mom “She’s right!” I have distinct memories of laying on the floor when my brother and I were little and playing with his massive collection of matchbox cars. I always wanted to play with the black corvette but often was stuck with the black A-Team van instead as the cars were his and the corvette was the most coveted car in his collection. When I hit junior high there were more posters of cars in my room then there were of people.

I bought my beloved 2008 Chevy HHR (which happens to be in the shop today getting it’s 30,000 mile service) because my RAV4 decided suddenly that it wouldn’t start when it was semi-warm 3 out of every 5 times. Long involved story made short: I took the RAV in several times to the tune of a combined $1000+ and they still could not seem to find the ghost in the machine that would cause it to not start. I travel a lot by car and needed something more reliable. While having all the problems with the RAV, I rented a car for a trip to LA and ended up with an HHR because they were out of compacts which I requested in my rental reservation. I loved the rental HHR and and by the end of that year I was the owner a shiny new HHR. Then the new Chevy Camaro comes out about a year later.

I tell myself I couldn’t wait that long- I needed a more reliable vehicle, that wasn’t so high mileage (the Rav was 8 years old and had 196K on her when I turned her in as a trade in). Don’t think for a second, however, it doesn’t kill me that the Chevy Camaro came out so soon after buying my HHR…because that Camaro is one SWEETcar. If it was feasible for me? I would totally trade in my HHR – that I am totally satisfied with and love dearly- in a second flat for a new Camaro. I wish I could do an even trade kind of thing; somehow though I think Chevy and my finance company would tell me no.

Last season you probably remember me going on and on about wanting to win the bright beautiful victory red Camaro that the Tony Stewart Foundation was raffling off. I mentioned it several times last year so I know that if you have been a reader for awhile you must have heard me waxing on and on about the car. I never entered that raffle…for various reasons (furloughs being one of the major ones).

Well guess what? All is not lost because The Tony Stewart Foundation is raffling off another Camaro from Smoke! And believe it or not? This Camaro is even better than the one given out last season. Why? It’s not just a beautiful car white car with a black racing stripe. This car has also been customized by Will Castro of Unique Autosports. If you are saying Huh? What? Who? Will Castro does customizations of lots of cars for athletes and celebrities and had a show called Unique Whips on TV for awhile (think kind of along the lines of Pimp My Ride). Will Castro and Unique Autosports actually did the customizations on Tony’s orange Lamborghini and his hearse (The Smoke Deville). This year the Camaro the winner gets will be featured on Will Castro’s new show Unique Autosports Miami (show premieres on SpikeTV Feb 28th).

How cool would it be to not only win a sweet Camaro- but to win won customized by Will and the crew at Unique Autosports? Not to mention that the winner gets an expenses paid trip to the Stewart-Haas Racing shop in North Carolina, and a personal meet n greet with Tony Stewart as he hands you the keys and title to the car. Raffle tickets are $50.00 each and there are 70 early bird prizes to be given away throughout the course of the raffle (early bird raffles will be March 15th, April 12th, May 10th, June 14th) with the final drawing for the grand prize of the Camaro on July 26th. Only 10,000 tickets will be sold for this raffle and proceeds will benefit The Tony Stewart Foundation’s many initiatives supporting care for critically ill children, drivers injured in motorsports activities as well as supporting organizations committed to the care and protection of various animal species. If you are interested in the raffle go to SmokesCamaro.com now for information on the raffle and to buy a ticket.

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Also if you are interested, Tony Stewart and Old Spice have teamed up again this year to present an unique auction again benefiting the Tony Stewart Foundation. After every victory- Tony will autograph his Old Spice towel and then auction it off with 100 % of the proceeds going to the Tony Stewart Foundation. Fans have their first opportunity to bid NOW! Tony won the Nationwide season opener at Daytona on Saturday. The towel is already on the auction block so get in on the action at this ebay auction if you are interested in owning a little piece of Tony’s third straight victory in the Nationwide Opening race (this year called the DRIVE4COPD 300) . The auction ends the morning of February 22nd- so get your bids in today for this piece of unique memorabilia.